


The State of Our Union

by dancinbutterfly



Category: The Purge (Movies), the purge: election year
Genre: American Politics, Canon Compliant, F/M, Flying, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Nicknames, Plans For The Future, Politics, Post-Election, Relationship can be read as romantic or platonic, World politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 06:50:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8834623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: It isn't safe for Charlie in the U.S. following the election results but her fight for the soul of America is just beginning. She has plans for the future, the support of the American majority, Leo by her side, and most importantly, hope.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TaffySinclair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaffySinclair/gifts).



> Thank you to the IRC Yuletide chat for their support. I could not have done this without you. Thank you to Mesonyx for the beta. Thank you to Arithanas for putting it all in perspective.

**_"Everything that is done in the world is done by hope." - Martin Luther King Jr._**

“Do you think this is really going to work?”

“It has to,” Charlie says sadly, pulling her gaze from the window to look down at her interlaced fingers. “What’s the alternative? Allowing this to continue? I don’t think so. Besides, it’s not unprecedented, a president-elect leaving the country after being elected.”

“No,” Leo agrees from his seat across from her in the small private jet. The pilot was one of his guys, a friend from the bad old days who cared more about his bottom line than world politics and the copilot was his wife. If Leo said he trusted the couple, then Charlie would trust him to. It was all she could do at this point. 

“It’ll be safe in The Hague. I spoke to the Prime Minister again when we took off. She said that our asylum had been unanimously approved by both the international courts and the Dutch parliament.” She glances back out the window at the clouds beneath them. “We’ll be fine.”

“I know. That’s not what I’m worried about. I just want to know if you think we'll ever be able to come back.

“The New Founding Fathers are not the majority,” she says firmly, clenching her fist. She won, goddamn it. She’s the first female president-elect of the United States of America. She has a landslide of votes to prove that more people want compassion, kindness, and mercy than hate, brutality, and death. She has to hold onto this now or she will go absolutely insane and she can’t. Not now. There’s too much at stake.

“No. But there are enough of them to be a problem. More important, they’ve got enough money to be dangerous.”

“And that’s why you and the International Court of Justice put together the personnel you have. We have people from the Safe Zone meeting us there to be part of the security detail. These are people we can trust to want the same thing we do. You said you even got Rucker to agree to join your team, that she’ll be only a day behind us.”

“That’s still no guarantee,” Leo grumbles.

“We have to try. We have a chance to bring testimony to the International Court. Even if we can’t go back right away, we can at least get started in taking action. The Purge is one of the greatest organized human rights violations in the history of civilization. Just because we have to wait until after inauguration to abolish it doesn’t mean we can’t start acting now.”

Leo rolls his eyes at her. “You don’t really think the UN has any teeth, do you?”

“It’s a start. If you have a better idea on what we can do, I’m all ears, but until then, we have to play the hand we’re dealt.”

“Even if we could get them, UN forces wouldn't be enough to get the whole country under control.”

“No,” Charlie agrees. “But we can request a coalition. We can ask our own military and those of Canada and the UK and Israel and Uruguay and Australia and Botswana every other democratic country on Earth to come and stand with us in defense of human rights to act as peacekeepers, to protect and defend instead of destroy and kill. This could be the moment when the world comes together to in service of compassion and empathy.” She tilts her head. “It might not work but we have to try.”

Leo sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose tight between his thumb and index finger. “So you’re looking at starting a third world war on American soil.”

“I don’t think it will come to that,” Charlie says and she doesn’t. But she’s willing to risk it. “But the Purge has to stop. It has to. This is not a world we can live in. It’s not a world anyone can live in and call it civilized, and I’m willing to go to war over it once and have it be over rather than have our people go to war with each other every year with no consequences. Aren’t you, boss?”

That makes Leo sigh again, heavier than before. He actually slumps in the plush seat and stares at her sullenly, like a third grader in time-out. “You do like to dream big, don’t you?”

That makes her smile. “If you’re going to dream at all, why not go all the way, I say?”

He smiles back, charming and handsome. It makes her heart ache a little, the way he believes in the cause and in her. “It’s risky.”

“Everything we’re doing is risky. But you know what they say. No risk, no reward. If the reward is a better future, then I think it’s worth the risk. We have to try. We won, Leo. The people want the Purge to stop. The world has been horrified by American politics and policy for a quarter century. We stopped being a model for truth and freedom and equality too long ago.” She can feel her fist clenching and wills her fingers to relax, to flex and straighten and lie straight on the armrest. “We can start the healing process. We don’t have to let a religious lie dominate the lives and policy of our country anymore. Especially not when the majority of the people living there are afraid of it and don’t want it. I believe that if we can get the support we need from global powers, that the people who voted for me to stand with us, the American people will stand up too.”

“Do you?” Leo asks. “Madame President, do you really?”

She refuses to flinch at his cynicism. She trusts Leo, with her life and her secrets and the future of their country, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to let him make her doubt. She can’t. No one can. Her stubborn persistence and optimism is all that’s left between America and a nightmare of violence that she has spent her whole life fighting to end. 

What she says is, “I’m not the president yet, boss.”

Leo shrugs and grins at her. “Hey, it’s close enough for me.”

In that moment, she thinks that there is no one she could love more. 

She’s sure, suddenly, that they’re going to do this. They’ve already won a battle and they’re going to win the war. She and Leo are going to end the Purge. 

They’re flying miles high, literally and figuratively. Their trust in each other is complete. From here on out, nothing can stop them.

_**"Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another." - Elie Wiesel** _

**Author's Note:**

> When I put this down as an option for Yuletide, I did not think that the US election would land us in a dystopian future. I truly didn't. When the results came in, the prospect of writing the aftermath of an election in a dystopian universe became literally repulsive to me. So what to do? I didn't know any of the other fandoms of this assignment. I couldn't figure out how to do it for weeks on end and even the thought was triggering. Defaulting was obviously an option but with everything the broken system is destroying, I absolutely refused to let those hate-mongers take Yuletide away from me too. 
> 
> So, I leaned on the magical Yuletide community and suddenly, this went from something awful to something restorative. It reminded me that no matter how awful the current political situation, there is always cause to hope. So thank you, TaffySinclair, for giving me a way to process some of what I was feeling. 
> 
> xoxo  
> Nonny


End file.
